Summer's Here!

I spent some time on the first day of summer going through a couple of my favorite cookbooks and recipe files. Now that I have a much bigger kitchen, I am super excited to start cooking up some of my favorites!

While getting back into my weekly meal planning for work, I decided this week I would pick one of my summer favorites.

Veggie Wheat Berry Salad

 Lots of chopping ensued...

 

 Green Bell Pepper, Cucumber, Red Onion, Celery and Tomatoes all looking pretty in the bowl...

Prep Time: 20 minutes, plus soaking and marinating time
Cook Time: 1 hour
Servings: 4

1 cup wheat berries, preferably the soft wheat variety
1 lb tomatoes, finely chopped
1 green bell pepper, finely chopped
1 cucumber, halved lengthwise, seeded and finely chopped
3 celery stalks, cut lengthwise into thirds and finely chopped
1/2 small red onion, finely chopped
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
Several dashes hot red pepper sauce

1. Soak wheat berries in a big bowl of cool water for at least 8 hours (up to 16 hours max). Drain them in a fine-mesh sieve or colander. Pour wheat berries into a large saucepan, fill it about two-thirds of the way with water, and bring to a boil over high-heat. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer until grains are tender with some chew still left, about 1 hour. Drain, then run under cool water to bring wheat berries to room temperature. Drain thoroughly.

2. Put cooked wheat berries in a large bowl and stir in remaining ingredients. Set aside to marinate at room temperature for 20 minutes before serving.

Tips:
I will generally take 1 cup of wheat berries and soak them in water overnight in a covered dish in the refrigerator. Cooking time has taken anywhere from 1 hour to 1.5 hours. The recipe calls for 2 teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce, but I add 2 tablespoons. I also opt to leave out the hot red pepper sauce. Finally, I do not leave out to marinate at room temperature. I immediately put mine in the refrigerator.

Bon appetite!

Summer Shred 13 Week 1 Recap

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Ours here in NYC turned out to be beautiful after Tropical Storm Andrea passed through here all day and night on Friday. Woke up to sunny skies on Saturday morning and it was perfect the whole entire weekend.

This past week also marked the first week of the Summer Shred 13 that I am participating in and I thought that I would share with you what my week has been like in regards to clean eating and exercising!

Like I said last week, we were all giving a food and exercise plans for the week. I ended up using the food plan as a guide and laid out in nice little table everything that I was going to eat for the week. Which I shared here.

I must say that this was a huge help to me this week and really helped reduce extra stress in my life. I encourage everyone to start using a weekly meal plan, especially if you are trying to watch what you eat. Also, just because it's written down doesn't mean you can't switch things up on it as needed. I pretty much followed what I planned out, but there were a couple times when I need to make a change due to whatever reason. It's not set in stone. It's a guide to help me through my week.

So what did I end up eating?

Every morning I had this delicious oatmeal with strawberries and almonds. I spiced it up with some cinnamon.

Also, if I ran before work, I had a Whey Protein Shake (but half the serving size). In addition, twice last week I also had a fresh green juice.  All of this usually held me until noon time.

By noon, I was always ready for my first snack of the day. I had this delicious Greek Yogurt with strawberries, granola and a little chocolate Whey Protein Powder.

I looked forward to this snack every day!

I generally take a late lunch at my office, so anywhere from 2:00pm to 2:30pm, I will eat my lunch. Below is just a sampling of what I would have.

As you can see there are always lots of veggies involved. This first picture is from over the previous weekend and the other three are actual work meals. By 5:00pm I would have my second snack of the day which was usually a small apple. One day I was still a little hungry so I had a handful of almonds with the apple.

Dinner is usually around 7:30pm. 

While the meal plan provided a wide variety of choices for dinner, Monday through Thursday I generally had the same dinner. I usually eat dinner alone those nights and since I am a vegetarian (with the exception of eating salmon once a week on the night before a long run), I want to make sure I am getting enough protein. So on those nights I would have scrambled eggs along with steamed veggies and either add a slice of toast, a Wasa Cracker or 1/2 an avocado.

My other meals consisted of a simple veggie chili dish with a sweet potato (delish!) and salmon with steamed veggies and brown basmati rice.

For the most part, I skipped that last snack of the day. Sunday is my cheat day so I did allow myself some frozen yogurt. I also had one night during the week where I was still hungry, so I had a cup of cherries.

As for exercise, we were provided with five HIIT workouts to complete Monday through Friday (a different one each day). The plan also allowed for three days of running, but if we ran we weren't suppose to do that day's HIIT.

I managed to complete four of the workouts this week!

Monday:

 Tuesday:

 Wednesday:

 Friday, but doing Thursday's workout:

I got home late on Thursday and didn't really have time to do the workout. I was ok with skipping it since I had run that morning.

Let me just say these workouts were amazing, intense and seriously sweat inducing!

I completed all the workouts at my level, meaning I did have to modify some of the exercises just so I could do them, and that is ok. I know the more I do these exercises, I will be eventually be able to complete them without modifications.

While I may have been cursing through some of the exercises, and my muscles were feeling extra sore, I can honestly say that by the end of the first week I feel stronger!

Of course there was some running this week too. Since I have been a runner for a long time, I didn't really think twice about doing a run and a HIIT workout all in the same day.

I ran twice before work:

 Ran once during my lunch break:

 And of course ran a little 10K race on Saturday morning:

I decided to take Sunday as a complete rest day, so no running on the trails were done. I ran a total of 15.26 miles this week.

Where does that leave me with my Run 1,000 miles by the end of the year goal?

I last talked about my running and mileage here on May 29 through Week 21. My previous total was 270.58.

Add the two new weeks of mileage:
Week 22: 9.00
Week 23: 15.26
New Total: 294.84

Still not back at the 20 plus mile weeks to get me to my goal. I am hoping this week will get me there.

I am so happy that the first week of the Summer Shred is under my belt. I wasn't sure what the week was going to bring me or how well I would fair with it.

I am super proud of myself for all that I accomplished this week along with my fantastic fellow Shredder's!

The clean eating left me satisfied and with more energy. The workouts pushed me to my limits and let me set new ones.

I have also lost a total of four pounds since my start weigh-in! Two last Monday and two again this morning!

I am ready for Week 2!

So tell me, what did you do this weekend? 
I spent a good portion of my weekend recovering and relaxing, of course after all my chores were done.

Anyone else race?  
I will be posting my Oakley New York Mini 10K Race Recap hopefully this week.

What's one thing you could start right now to make a healthy difference in your life?
I started using my Pedometer this week. I bought the Omron HJ-112 Pocket Pedometer from here.

Friday Addiction?

Several months ago I decided that I needed to bring my lunch to work with me everyday. It not only saved my wallet but also my waistline. For the past few weeks I decided that Friday's were going to be my "Treat Yourself to Lunch Day." The old me would probably get some 99 cent pizza, but the new me decides to go to Pret A Manger and get this yummy salad:

This is Pret's Farmer's Market Salad. Let me tell you, it is freaking yummy and very filling! It contains Avocado, Garbanzo Beans, Mediterranean Lentil Salad, Pine Nuts, Shredded Beets and Carrots, Cherry Tomatoes, Roasted Red Peppers on a bed of Spinach for only 260 calories.

Pret also offers six different dressings ranging from your basic Balsamic to Wild Berry. I usually choose the Lemon & Shallot Vinaigrette. It's only 100 calories for the whole packet. I find it's a very light and tangy dressing for not a whole lot of calories.

What I love about Pret the most is that everything they offer is natural, some items are organic, and made fresh throughout the day! Now can you say YUM?!?!

Happy Friday Everyone!